


Love's First Touch

by Applesandbannas747



Series: Stuck With You [2]
Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: I suggest you read all previous works in this series for best understanding of this AU, M/M, Soulmate AU, but if you're not concerned about that then neither am I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Bobby Rodriguez has always looked forward to finding his soulmate, always had grand and romantic ideas about how his soulbind might happen. But, after falling for his best friend, Bobby’s not ready to risk love’s first touch because he’s not ready to let go of Dante.
Relationships: Bobby Rodriguez/Dante Rossi
Series: Stuck With You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593739
Comments: 22
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

“You’ll get it next year,” Dante said before Bobby had a chance to say anything at all. Bobby nodded. Next year. There was always next year. Until there wasn’t.

“What if I’m not good enough, Dante? What if I can’t make the team next year? It’s my last shot and if I can’t make it, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“You’ll make it.”

“You said that last year.”

“You got closer.”

“How would you know?” Bobby teased. “I thought you didn’t know anything about fencing.”

“I didn’t care about it at all either before I met you. I know enough.” Dante stood up, tossing Bobby the water bottle that had kept him company this whole time. Dante slung Bobby’s bag over his shoulder, though Bobby had reached for it himself. “And what I don’t know about fencing, I make up in knowing about you. You did great, Bobby. Better than you’ve ever done before. Next year, you’ll be better. You’ll make the team, I know you will.”

Bobby smiled at that, feeling a little better. He’d lost too many bouts today to stand a chance of making the team. He couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a major letdown, couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. But Dante always knew just what to say to make him feel better. Not for the first time, Bobby wished he could hug Dante.

He still remembered the first day he’d met his best friend. Freshman year, moving into the dorms. Bobby had been intimidated by the incredibly tall boy he’d found in his room. And the height wasn’t the worst of it—Dante’s face was so serious and Bobby had found it stern and unimpressed at all times. During the first weeks of school, he’d done his best not to bother Dante. It was silly to think of it now, but it was true that he’d kept himself quiet and scarce. Until he’d noticed a loose button on Dante’s school blazer. A rambling mess of an offer to fix it had earned him a laugh from Dante. And, all of a sudden, he hadn’t seemed daunting or scary or stern at all. The rest was history.

They’d been best friends ever since, the only barrier between them the unavoidable one of touch. Bobby wasn’t conservative but, at first, he’d been sure Dante was. Not wanting to make any presumptions, Bobby had kept his hands and his hugs to himself. Touching bare skin was always intimate in a way, but if Dante was conservative about soulmates, he might have found the friendly affection offensive.

Dante wasn’t conservative. Bobby knew that now. Knew that people had assumed that he was all of his life. Dante had told Bobby as much. It was because he was intimidating, so big and serious-faced. Conservative or not, Bobby hadn’t breeched that boundary yet. Because, by the time he knew Dante wouldn’t mind the possibility of bare skin touching bare skin, _he_ was too scared to try it. Bobby was too scared his touch wouldn’t stick and he liked Dante too much to give up on that crazy hope just yet.

* * *

Bobby screamed and hollered at the top of his lungs when Coach Williams announced there would be two reserves this year. He knew that meant both Nick and Eugene had a place on the team and it was so great to see them both stand on stage to receive their pins that Bobby hardly felt the sting of not being up there with them.

“You’ll make it next year,” Dante said again, stooping low to say it in Bobby’s ear. Bobby nodded, more ready to believe it than he had been the last time he’d heard it.

“Thanks, Dante.”

The assembly ended and the crowd started moving, everyone headed back toward class. Two seniors were roughhousing, and one pushed the other a little too hard. In retaliation, the boy hurled his backpack at his friend, who ducked just in time to avoid it.

“Dante!” Bobby warned, seeing the bag hurtling fast at his best friend. On instinct, his hand darted out to catch Dante and tug him out of the way of the projectile.

The backpack flew past them, uninterrupted in its arc to the floor. The seniors kept shoving each other. The crowd continued to flow out of the auditorium in mass exodus. Everything was fine.

“Glad that didn’t get you,” Bobby said, smiling with relief at Dante. Dante wasn’t smiling, he had his serious-face on, the exact arrangement of it meaning he was intrigued by what he was looking down at. Bobby looked down, too, because Dante’s gaze was even lower than it usually had to be when they spoke. “What is it—?”

Bobby’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes snapped open.

_Oh no no no, not like this._

Bobby stared down in shock at his hand, clenched right around the sliver of wrist exposed by Dante’s disrupted jacket. And Bobby panicked.

“I can’t—,” he started, then shook his head violently when the words wouldn’t come out right. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t ready.

“Bobby,” Dante said steadily, “can you let go of me?”

“No,” Bobby squeaked pitifully. Because it was the truth. It was the truth to a different question from the one Dante had asked. But Bobby _couldn’t_ let go of Dante. He wasn’t ready yet. He wanted to pretend for a little while longer that his crush—the one he worried was love sometimes late at night—could actually be love.

Bobby’s eyes were welling with tears and as the started to spill, scalding hot down his cheeks, Dante wiped them away easily with a thumb. One tear at a time. It was enough of a shock to receive that sort of thing from Dante when they’d never danced anywhere near the edge of touching skin before that Bobby sniffled into surprised silence.

“I’m sorry, Dante,” Bobby managed. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Is it so bad?” Dante asked, raising the arm Bobby had his fingers held tightly around.

“No! No, it’s not bad if we’re soulmates, that’s not what I’m saying.” Bobby wasn’t sure what he _was_ saying but he couldn’t let Dante think he was in hysterics at the thought of a soulbind with him. It was the thought of knowing once and for all that their souls wouldn’t bind that had Bobby rattled. But he couldn’t say that. Not even to Dante. Because he might physically have been able to let go. But he wasn’t ready to yet.

Dante whisked Bobby away from the small pool of onlookers that had caught on to their scene and took him to their room.

“Do you think they saw?” Bobby knew the answer. “They’ll all think now that...” and it hit Bobby fully then. What he had done. Pretending to bind with someone was frowned upon. Even as a joke, it was seen as crude and invasive and offensive. And Bobby was worse than all that because he was being purposefully deceitful. Accidentally purposefully deceitful. And the whole school would hear about it. And Dante would probably hate him he knew the truth.

“I’m sorry,” Dante said.

“No, don’t be! Really, _I’m_ sorry, please don’t feel bad.”

“I know you always wanted it to be something special.”

“Huh?”

“Your soulbind. You told me freshman year about all the romantic scenarios you hoped for.”

“Those were all just silly.”

“No, they weren’t. I’m sorry you got an auditorium instead of a rose garden or a cliff overlooking the sea.”

Bobby giggled. “Some of them were kind of over dramatic, weren’t they? Like saving my love from falling to their death.” He sighed. “I still had dreams of getting taller back then. If you’d needed saving from a cliff over a perilous but beautiful churn of ocean waves, I couldn’t have saved you. But,” Bobby said brightly, “I could have gone down with you. And that’s something, isn’t it?”

“Condemned to death by love’s first touch. A tragedy worthy of Shakespeare.”

Bobby smiled at his hand. He knew this was wrong but he liked the sound of that. Not about dying and tragedy. _Love’s first touch._ Bobby would have gone down with Dante, bound to him or not. And _that_ was something, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a Fence playlist, right? That I listen to while writing, yeah? I couldn't listen to it while writing this because the vibes skewed too much towards the enemies to lovers feel lmao I had to listen to one of my generic happy romance playlists instead lmao I'm not cut out for writing sweet couples I guess


	2. Chapter 2

Bobby and Dante had opted to stay in and skip all the attention. Soulbinds were a part of life—a beautiful, magical part of life—but they were curiosities in school. Enough to get gawking. According to studies Bobby had read, about 80% of people found their soulmate after high school, so finding them early was a little odd. And, in Bobby’s opinion, special. And romantic. And lucky. He’d always wanted to find his soulmate before turning 18. Especially after meeting Tanner and Kally—the only soulmates at Kings Row. They were so happy together, so in love. Bobby wanted that.

He wanted that with Dante. For a day, maybe he could have that with Dante. Then he’d fess up and let go.

“Bobby, I don’t know if sewing one-handed is a good idea,” Dante said mildly, watching Bobby struggle to pin a dart in the dress he was working on.

Dante was right. Sewing one-handed wasn’t a good idea and he’d have to fix all of his sloppy progress tomorrow but he was stressed and sewing helped. Plus, they’d just been issued new curtains for their room and all that fabric was too tempting to just leave laying around.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” There was genuine worry in Dante’s voice. Bobby felt terrible. He felt even worse when he looked over and saw Dante’s face, eyebrows pulled down close and mouth set in a concerned frown. And his eyes. Those were the worst. They looked a little hurt. Carefully, Dante took Bobby’s clumsy left hand away from the folds of fabric on his lap and held it. “Were you hoping for someone else? I know you’re smitten with Seiji Katayama but—”

“No!” Bobby interrupted, too alarmed by the idea of that to mind his manners. “Goodness, _no._ I really like Seiji, of course, but soulmates?” It was laughable and terrifying to even consider such a thing. Seiji was on another plane of existence, it just wouldn’t make sense for him to get _Bobby_ as a soulmate. Dante knew him too well because he knew exactly what Bobby was thinking.

“You’re plenty good enough for Seiji. For anyone. There’s not a soul alive that wouldn’t be lucky to have you.”

“Oh, I don’t know about all that...”

 _“I’m_ lucky to have you. But if you’d rather—,”

Again, Bobby’s manners failed him. “Dante, you’ve got it all wrong. I really couldn’t ask for a better soulmate than you. I...” Bobby almost said it. The words that he’d carried in his heart for years. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take advantage of Dante and confess while he was under the impression they were actually soulmates. It wouldn’t be right. “I’m overwhelmed, that’s all. But I’m really happy to have you by my side for this, okay?” Bobby squeezed Dante’s hand in his before returning it to pick at his pins nervously. The hand around Dante’s wrist stayed secure.

Dante smiled, his eyes cleared of worry now. Bobby’s chest hurt for the sincerity of that smile. People thought Dante was scary but he was really just very big and very sweet and very quiet with his expressions. Bobby loved all the little ways his face showed what he felt, loved knowing that, coming from Dante, that little smile was actually _huge_ with all the feeling behind it.

* * *

“How should we do this?” Dante asked.

Bobby didn’t understand what he was asking at first. They’d just bumbled through their nighttime routine, which wasn’t far off from usual except that Bobby was finding his left hand supremely bad at things his right hand took for granted. Like brushing his teeth or fixing his hair for the night. Dante had seen him struggling with that one and had brushed and braided his hair for him.

Now, they stood side by side and wrist in hand and Bobby realized the question. Two beds on opposite sides of the room.

“My arm is too short to stretch all the way across the room,” Bobby said dumbly. “Really, it’s too short for a lot of things, which can be inconvenient.”

Dante let out a small laugh, shaking his head.

“What am I going to do with you and your short arms? What about moving the beds close enough together that your arm can reach across them?”

“Oh, yes, good idea, Dante.” Bobby tried to calm his heartbeat and stop his face from heating. And, while he was at it, hide his disappointment. It was for the best, really. He’d have burst with nerves if he’d had to share a bed with Dante.

Together, they pushed Bobby’s bed across the floor. Dante didn’t stop until the beds were pushed flush up against each other.

“I don’t want you falling off,” he explained.

And then it was time for bed. Bobby was glad he was wearing his favorite sweater. Poor Dante was trapped in his King’s Row blazer for the full 24 hours of their false bind. Bobby had offered to cut him out of it and sew it back up the next day, but Dante had told him there was no need for all that. He looked a little goofy in his uniform from the waist up and with his unfairly tall legs clad in pajama pants instead of the slacks to match. Funny enough that Bobby giggled as he recalled the outfit just after they turned off the lights and climbed under their covers.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” But Bobby giggled again. “I never thought very much about the practical part of a soulbind. I couldn’t even brush my own hair! And you look so silly dressed like that. It’s funnier than all the stuff I dreamed about and a little inconvenient too.”

“Maybe that’s why it’s so censored in movies. It’s not romantic enough.”

Bobby giggled harder at that. “Could be. But I think it’s still romantic, even if it’s a little embarrassing and a little funny. Two souls binding together forever. I always wonder how that works. Would they meld and become one? Or do they get all mixed up and redistributed between us? Or is it like a little string connecting them?”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

Bobby rolled around to face Dante. “I have. I’ve thought over all of it. And this is exactly how I wanted it to happen.”

Bobby could just make out the surprise on Dante’s face. “But this is nothing like anything you used to talk about.”

“But it’s with you. So it’s perfect.” Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t perfect at all.

“Bobby?” Dante asked, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Bobby, you’re crying. Is this about us or is it about the fencing team?”

A little sob escaped before Bobby wiped away his tears determinedly.

“You’re too good,” he said miserably. “You’re always too good to me. You come to all of my fencing stuff even though you don’t care at all about fencing and you’re such a good listener and you always pay attention and know just what to say to make me feel better and I love you. I really think I love you.”

Dante was wiping his tears again, but they were falling too fast.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” Dante said soothingly. “I love you too.”

“No,” Bobby choked out. He yanked away from Dante’s hand, sitting up fast. “You don’t understand. We’re not actually soulstuck. I panicked because I didn’t want to—I don’t know what I’ll do if you’re not my soulmate and—Dante, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I shouldn’t have—,” Bobby ran out of breath to speak with. And nerve.

“Bobby, it’s okay,” Dante was already trying to calm him down. He should be mad, but instead, he was sitting up too and pulling Bobby to him in a hug. “It’s okay.”

Bobby soaked up the comfort for a long minute, sunk into the hug he’d always wanted to give Dante. But he needed to let go. He pulled out of the embrace gently.

“I really wanted to be your soulmate,” Bobby said, letting his grip relax. “I’m sorry.”

When Bobby let go, he tucked his arm back over to his bed. Dante’s arm came with him.

“I let go,” Bobby said in surprise. He wasn’t holding on anymore but, when he brought his relaxed hand up to his face, it was still curled around Dante’s wrist. After staring at the impossibility before him, Bobby looked up at Dante, panicked all over again. “I swear I let go! You can try peeling off my fingers. Here,” Bobby thrust his hand at Dante.

Dante didn’t try pulling Bobby’s hand off him. Instead, he laid his other hand over it and squeezed lightly.

“I believe you. I always believed you.”

“But I lied.”

“But it wasn’t a lie.”

“But—,” Bobby couldn’t think what else to say.

“You’re my soulmate, Bobby,” Dante told him, smiling. A little shyly, Bobby thought. “And I love you. I have since freshman year.”

“You have?”

“Yes.”

“I love you too,” Bobby said, quiet because he couldn’t believe this. It was all too much. “And you’re my soulmate. You’re my _soulmate!”_ The excitement hit Bobby hard and he threw himself back at Dante, squeezing him tightly with the one arm he could wrap around him. Bobby’s arms might have been short and his left hand might have been useless for a lot of things but this, at least, it could do. “And I’ve been dying to hug you forever!” He said into Dante’s rumpled jacket.

“Me too,” Dante said, returning the one-armed hug, their other arms squished between them. “I don’t know what I would have done if I wasn’t your soulmate.”

“I can’t believe it,” Bobby felt overwhelmed and light-headed and giggly. “I can’t believe how happy I am. Hey,” Bobby pulled back to peer up at Dante, “can I stay on your side of the bed tonight?”

“I’d like that.” Dante made room for him and Bobby slipped under his covers, abandoning his own with his bed.

Because he was feeling untouchably happy, Bobby wrapped his clumsy left hand in Dante’s gently curling hair and kissed him, just once and just small.

“Goodnight,” he whispered, only inches from Dante’s lips. Then the inches were disappearing fast and Dante kissed him, a little longer and a little bigger.

“Goodnight, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading 💜


End file.
